Random Thoughts About Reading Genres Other Than the One I’m Writing

I can’t speak for all writers, but I’m at the point where I don’t want to read the kind of books I writing. I know that sounds terrible. Early on (from about 1996-2007), I actually wrote thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy. This was before 2009 when I discovered the ease of self-publishing. This is why you don’t see a lot of thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy under my name. While I was writing that genre, I was reading a lot of romance, specifically historical western romances. It was my favorite genre to read. I just hadn’t written one yet. I did go with a couple of vanity presses to publish those books, but that got pretty expensive, so I would only put out about one book a year.

In 2008, I discovered that I could publish paperbacks on CreateSpace (this is no longer around, but it was under Amazon). I still remember the writer forum where I learned about CreateSpace. One author told me that all I had to do was pay for the proof copy of the book. There was no other cost involved. That was a lot more affordable than spending $500-$1000 per book. This was at the time when I started writing romance. Since I could afford the $20 (proof copy plus shipping), my enthusiasm for writing went way up. Once ebooks became doable, that excitement shot up even more. I basically wrote whenever I had free time. (Back then, my four kids were 4, 5, 6, and 7. Yep, they were “stair-step” kids. I had to write in 10-15 minute sprints because I was constantly interrupted. This probably explains why I’ll stop writing around the 20-minute mark to get up and do a chore around the house these days. I have trouble sitting for longer than that to just write. Considering how often I hear about authors needing to get up and do something because it’s hard on the body to sit all the time, I’m glad that I learned to write under these circumstances.

Anyway, had the self-publishing boom exploded anywhere from 2000 to 2007, you would see a lot more thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy under my name. I had plenty of ideas for those books. I just didn’t have the motive to go crazy into writing it. So you can thank the timing of the emergence of the Kindle and Smashwords for all of the romance books I’ve done.

That all said, I always loved reading romance. I’ve been reading romance from YA to adult since I was in the sixth grade. I’ve read the range from “clean & wholesome” to “erotic”. I ended up landing in the middle of the spectrum as a writer. I do think there’s a benefit to reading a wide spectrum of whatever genre that interests you. That way, you know the different levels. After some experimentation, you’ll settle on the level that best fits you. Even if you vary that level from time to time, you’ll end up gravitating to a certain “range”. It’s a process to figure out your sweet spot.

I was a heavy romance reader until about 2012. At that point, I was starting to get bored of them. I wasn’t bored with writing them. I did have a conversation with another author recently, and we both agreed that we are now bored reading the genres we write in. We would rather read something else. That struck me as curious. You’d think if you love writing something, you’d want to keep reading it, right? But that hasn’t been the case for me. I find myself wanting to read other genres. I think it helps to keep the creativity humming if I’m not expanding my horizons with different things.

I want to support self-published authors (especially those not in the top charts). I don’t read any authors you’ll find in a brick and mortar bookstore. I prefer someone who needs a readership. I want my money going to them. So if there’s an author who is all over the place, I choose not to read their books. They already have readers. They don’t need me. I want to be where I’m needed. To find new authors, I do some searches, but I mostly rely on promotions in BookDoggy to find them. The search engines keep bringing up the same authors, and that doesn’t help me find new ones. With BookDoggy, I have no idea what author or even what genre will come in each day, and that has done wonders to finding new authors. So if an author is reading this and wondering if running a promotion is worth it, this is a strong case for it. I have not joined BookFunnel as a reader to see their promotions, but my guess is that it might be a good idea to do so at some point because you can tell BookFunnel to alert you to promos in a specific genre.

Currently, I am enjoying horror. I did read a science fiction short story the other day about the government using AI to wipe out memories and alter history to fit the government’s agenda. That was an intriguing idea, and I did enjoy the premise. I’ve read a couple of thrillers, and while they’re okay, they don’t offer enough “creep” factor for me. I don’t want to have to keep the lights on when I sleep, but I do like thinking, “Ooh, that would be creepy.” So I am leaning toward horror. Horror is pretty much thriller to the Nth degree. I am quickly learning the best way to creep someone out is to take something surprisingly normal but twist it a bit. For example, I just finished a story where a mom took over her teenage son’s game because the people in the game were coming into real life to follow him around. This is a super simple premise, but there was one moment where the son comes across this nun who is just staring at him in the middle of a store (and no one else sees her) that actually gave me the “that is really creepy” factor. There was no blood. There was no “jump scare”. All the nun did was try to bump into him (as if he were in the game). I mean, there was a backstory to all of this, but that backstory set the foundation for the “creep” factor in this scene, and the authors did it very well. This kind of horror is intriguing to me. That is what real horror is. And yet, people will say horror is “trash”. Horror, when done right, is far from “trash”. I’m learning that what horror really does is take an aspect of the human condition and delves into the dark side of it.

I guess I’m reading these other genres because, on a subconscious level, I know I have something to learn from them. I’ve been reading and writing romance for so long, I pretty much already get it. Sure, there are still things to pick up in romance, but I’ve been studying it enough. I need to explore other things.